


too often when i loved, i did not say so

by radialDespair



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beaujester Week, F/F, Prompt - First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 15:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialDespair/pseuds/radialDespair
Summary: In which an ogre is fought, feelings are discovered, a King is not amused and a kiss occurs





	too often when i loved, i did not say so

Jester allowed herself a little satisfaction, as Beau pulled in close, wrapping her arm around her waist. She wasn’t sure why Beau had automatically assumed that she needed to be quite this close when using dimension door, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. 

The door opened with a shimmer, and they stepped through it smoothly. The first time Jester had used Dimension Door, she’d expected to feel sick as she travelled, but honestly, it didn’t feel any different from walking through any other door. Magic was weird. 

They’d reached central Darktow, and after a second to get her bearings, Beau set off running, towards the Throne Roost. Jester was moving to follow when she saw bared steel. Ten or so of Avantika’s crew materialised out of the crowd. Bouldergut folded herself out of an alleyway, scraping her club behind her.

“Capt’n said you two might run off t’gether, thought we’d oughta cut you off here, like.” Bouldergut said, her voice a low rumble.

Bouldergut raised her club and let out a full throated roar. There was a moment’s silence, and then the various pirates on the street hurried to be _off_ the street, leaving Jester all alone, facing Bouldergut and her friends. 

“Gonna be okay, Jess” Beau said, as she slipped back to Jester’s side, gently touching her back with one hand.

“Yeah, we got this” Jester said, smiling weakly.

The world seemed to stand still for a moment, as though no one wanted to be the first one to start the fight. Jester almost allowed herself to consider that they wouldn’t have to fight at all - maybe they’d be able to come to some sort of peaceful conclusion.

Bouldergut swung her club to point at them, the pirates surged forwards, and all hell broke loose. 

Beau flicked a dart out, catching one of them in the chest. As he staggered backwards, she was amongst them, whirling and punching. Jester clenched her fist, and her lollipop blinked into existence, swinging to hit Bouldergut fully in the stomach.

She followed up with a guiding bolt, which whistled through the air, weaving through the melee to hit Bouldergut in the jaw, snapping her head up, and scorching her chin and neck black. Jester could see the skin peeling back. Sparkles of light burst from the impact point, coating Bouldergut’s face and torso. 

Beau vaulted over a pirate, kicking off the back of his head towards Bouldergut, and driving her elbow deep into the nape of her neck, but Bouldergut simply grunted her annoyance, and shook Beau off.

Beau rolled to her feet, looking a little ruffled, but no more than that. Jester gave up on trying to deal with Bouldergut, then, and closed her eyes to ask the traveller for assistance. From somewhere in the Feywild, a tiny unicorn burst into existence, orbiting Jester, its horn wickedly sharp. Then another. And another. Soon enough, Jester was surrounded by a swirling field of tiny unicorns. The pirate closest to her screamed, as a unicorn tore a chunk of his stomach away. 

They couldn’t win, though. Not against such long odds. Beau took a nasty slash across the back from a scimitar - she’d been forced to take that, to avoid the lethal swing of Bouldergut’s club, but it was badly sapping her strength. Jester kept them at arm’s length with her swarm of unicorns for a while, but when one of them forced his way through, ignoring his wounds to bludgeon her in the stomach with a cosh, she could not keep her mind on the unicorns, and one by one they winked out of existence. 

The fighting came to a lull, as Bouldergut and her compatriots stopped to assess their losses. Three pirates lay insensate on the floor, though whether they were alive or dead, Jester didn’t know. Another was propped up against a cart as a fifth stitched together his wounds. They’d defeated less than half of their assailants, and Beau could barely stand, her left eye swollen shut, bleeding from a half dozen cuts, and holding her ribs - Jester could tell at a glance that some of them were broken, but she still stood between Jester and Bouldergut, weakly raising her fists as she swayed gently from side to side.

For herself, Jester could feel something was wrong in her stomach; she didn’t know what, but one of her internal organs was almost certainly bleeding, and she had the unpleasant weight inside her skull that told her she was all tapped out.

“Hey, Beau?” Jester said.

“Yeah, Jessie?” Beau said, her voice strained as she kept her eyes trained on Bouldergut.

“We’re not going to die, are we?” Jester said.

“Nah, Jess. We’ll be fine. I’ve got it covered.” Beau said, but she refused to turn to look Jester in the eye, and Jester wasn’t _stupid_.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Beau to die. She certainly didn’t want to die without telling Beau - she caught herself. Telling Beau what? That she loved her? That she was in love with her? Jester blinked. That was true. She knew it was true, but she didn’t know how long it had been true.

If they were going to die, Jester figured, then anything she did now didn’t matter.

“Beau?” Jester said, “I think-”

She was interrupted as Bouldergut let out a startled half-cry. Looking up, Jester saw the ogre fall, half her skull stoved in.

The Plank King stepped calmly around the body, a colossal hammer held loosely in one hand. The other pirates with Bouldergut took one look at him and scattered. 

“I was _told_ there was an ogre rampaging through the streets. I come out here to deal with it, kill a valued member of Captain Avantika’s crew, and then find you two, out here, looking like hammered shit, and yet _not_ fighting the ogre that wanted to kill you. What, exactly, is going on in my city?” He said, his voice deceptively calm.

Beau cast a glance towards Jester, who shook her head - she wasn’t going to tell Beau _now_ , so Beau looked back at the Plank King, and told him everything.  
  


The Plank King killed Avantika, imprisoned what was left of her crew - Caleb had become rather liberal with his use of fire as the battle continued, and very little of the crew remained - and banished them from Darktow. Throughout all of this, Jester studiously avoided Beau. She felt awkward, raw even. Jester wasn’t used to this. Usually, when something was making her feel vulnerable, she would go to Beau, and Beau would make her feel better. But the thing that was making her feel vulnerable was _Beau_. 

She’d taken her own cabin, rather than bunking with Beau like she usually did, and, inevitably, her sleep suffered. She missed talking to Beau before she went to sleep, missed Beau’s quiet, measured breathing as she went to sleep, missed waking up as Beau went through her stretches. 

  
At about 3 in the morning on the second night of their voyage, Jester decided against repeating her tactic of the night before - waiting until she became so tired that she slipped into unconsciousness, and instead, decided to get some fresh air.

The deck still smelt faintly of brimstone, but the scent of the sea was omnipresent. She breathed in deeply, leaning against the railing and staring into the ocean as it lapped gently against the hull.

“Can we talk, Jess?” 

Jester turned around slightly sheepishly, to see Beau standing at the top of the stairs leading down into the ship. Moonlight played across her face, dappled by the rigging, and Jester fought an irrational urge to kiss her. 

“Oh, right! Sure! Yeah!” Jester said. “But I’m pretty tired, so maybe in the morning…?”  
  
“Don’t bullshit me, Jester. You’ve been avoiding me since Darktow, and I just…” Beau’s voice cracked. “I just want to know what I did, Jess.”

She stopped then. She had to. Pain like that wasn’t something she could walk away from, and coming from Beau made it so much worse. Beau was strong. Beau was a rock on which you could rely - she didn’t always know what to do, but she was always there, unconditionally supportive.

“It’s not your fault, Beau,” Jester said, “I just… I realised when I thought we were going to die that the idea of losing you hurt more than I could bear, and I was going to tell you, but then it didn’t happen and then I’ve been too nervous whenever I see you and-”  
  
“Hey, Jess, breathe. It’s okay.” Beau said, raising her hands to placate her. “I know what you mean, but avoiding me… that hurt, Jessie.”  
  
Beau moved to hug her, and Jester fell into her arms, burying her face in Beau’s neck. 

“I’m in love with you, you know?” Jester murmured, her lips a hair’s breadth from Beau’s skin. 

  
“Me too.” Beau said, then paused. “Wait, I mean I’m in love with you, not-”

Jester kissed her, and time stopped. Beau’s hand threaded through Jester’s hair as she deepened the kiss. They would need to talk in the morning, to discuss what happened next. But for now, they stood on the deck of the ship they had won, and they kissed like there was no one else in the world.


End file.
